With the US National Security Strategy 2025, President Donald Trump has practically formalised the pursuit of personal enrichment and culture wars as the foremost objectives of his administration. The policy document looks set to replace diplomacy to beat longstanding rivals China and Russia with policies that arm-twist allies and partners to bend them to his will.
In the first year, every US administration releases the National Security Strategy (NSS) that outlines the president’s world view. Trump’s NSS 2025 has not just explained the rationale —or lack of it— for his actions so far but shown how he could act in the next three years.
With no pushback from Republican-controlled Congress or a Supreme Court that he packed with conservatives in his first term, there is little indication Trump might have any guardrails in the pursuit of the NSS.
Echoes of the East India Company in Trump’s culture wars
At the onset, it is imperative to understand that President Trump’s foreign policy is an extension of his domestic agenda that rests on concentrating power in his office and person, pursuing those he considers political adversaries, and institutionalising White Christian nationalism, according to Anil Raman, who heads the US studies programme at the Takshashila Institution.
This is not unlike how the British East India Company operated. Owned by profit-minded private shareholders, the Company pursued extractive economics just like Trump and used similar tactics —the ‘White Man’s burden’ and the combination of private interests with that of the state— to benefit its officers, shareholders, backers in the government, and eventually the state’s treasury.
From White House to China: What Trump says and does
Irrespective of whatever he might say about China, President Trump doesn’t appear driven by any desire to tackle Chinese aggression or overtake China in manufacturing, but he is driven by purely ideological and economic reasons, according to Raman.
Unlike the Cold War where the United States pursued a campaign against Soviet communism, Trump’s ideological pursuit is not systemic opposition to Chinese authoritarianism.
“Domestically, President Trump is reshaping America in his image — white, Christian, and benefiting him and his friends,” says Raman, recounting a slew of decisions that have done nothing to help America but helped him and his friends.
In 11 months, Trump has torn apart the White House to rebuild it to his liking as if it were his private home, overridden the US Constitution, blatantly defined courts, awarded contracts and handed government departments to friends, deployed the US military to pursue a “war within” the nation against fellow citizens, filed lawsuits against critics, and killed sailors at will in the international waters without due process.
Raman says, “Similarly, his foreign policy is not aimed at strengthening the United States to face China but to reshape Europe. He wants a sociopolitical course-correction in Europe where he says he wants to save the continent from ‘civilisational erasure’. What he really wants is to wage a culture war to export his domestic agenda —White Christian nationalism— through a network of far-right parties to Europe that would help him enrich himself and his friends off Europe’s resources.”
But how does that help the America First agenda that Trump came to power with?
It does not, says Raman.
“In the long-term, President Trump’s policies will severely harm American power and standing in the world as allies and partners will adapt and the United States will find itself completely alone while its adversaries will stay together. But he will not be around to face consequences. If he really had America’s interests in mind, he would have never approved the sale of advanced Nvidia chips to China. There is no rationale for the approval other than enrichment,” says Raman.
Just like the case of East India Company and its masters, the interests of Robert Clive would come first, then the company’s shareholders, and then the crown and its treasury. But the people? They did not figure in the grand plans then and they do not figure in the scheme now.
Civilisation, Christianity, and Commerce — Trump’s 3-Cs of neocolonialism
Trump making ‘Civilisation, Christianity, and Commerce’ as the foundation of his administration’s security and foreign policies is a throwback to the colonial age where the ‘3Cs’ guided European expansion the world over.
In South Africa and Nigeria, Trump has intervened in the naming of saving white people and Christians — the present-day equivalent of White Man’s burden. With Pakistan, Trump has entered into a relationship with the country’s ruling elites —Field Marshal Asim Munir and the Sharif clan— just like the British found allies among princely states. In Syria, Trump has found an ally in Ahmed al-Sharaa.
With Pakistan as well as Syria, Trump has secured a private army that he can deploy at will. He has already cut deals with Pakistan to deploy troops to the Gaza Strip. The Saudi-Pakistan defence pact is understood to have the American blessing as well.
With Pakistan, Trump has also started signing deals for natural resources just like the European powers sought raw materials from colonies, turned them into final products, and sold them back to the natives. Just like the colonial age, Trump would profit from Pakistan’s resources, the Sharifs and Munirs would profit from investments, but the Pakistani people would not be part of the scheme.
Similarly, in Europe, Trump has sought to install satraps by supporting far-right figures in France, Germany, the United Kingdom, in the name of ‘3Cs’.
Trump has said the purpose is to protect free speech and the so-called European civilisation. But the claim is hollow as Trump has threatened to invade the same Europe to annex Greenland. And he has trampled on free speech aplenty in America.
Trump’s profiteering: An undoing risk for America
Just like the British East India Company, and eventually the British empire, collapsed under its own weight, Trump’s profit-minded governance —justified and executed by the ‘3Cs’— could very well lead to the collapse of America’s superpower status.
Incomprehensibly, Trump has himself begun as well as accelerated the process of America’s decline and handed the competing superpower —China— the ingredients to overtake it.
Under the America First push, President Trump’s foreign policy as well as NSS are contradictory at best and self-defeating at worst, says Sriparna Pathak, Professor and Associate Dean at Jindal School of International Affairs (JSIA) at OP Jindal Global University.
Pathak flags that neither NSS nor his actions clarify who American adversaries or allies are at the moment.
“The NSS downplays any adversarial relationship with China or even a rivalry. Instead, it outlines President Trump’s thoughts that the United States and China should pursue a mutually advantageous trade and economic policy, but that’s self-defeating as China does not have any principle of mutuality,” says Pathak, a specialist in Chinese studies.
Incomprehensibly, the NSS states that the Trump administration does not pursue to be the superpower anymore. As a result, he has elevated China and its leader, Xi Jinping, as an equal with the formation of ‘G-2’.
But G-2 is bound to fail because China does not want to be America’s equal, it wants to beat it to become the world’s sole superpower, says Pathak.
So far, there has not been any reciprocity from China —or even Russians for that matter— for a string of American concessions, such as essentially accepting China’s claim over Taiwan, admitting defeat in the trade war, and acceptING Russia’s claim on Eastern Europe.
What has Trump got in return?
Nothing, says Pathak.
“And President Trump will get nothing,” adds Pathak. “He wanted to turn China into a partner from an adversary. In doing so, he has ended the rivalry with China. But China has not ended the rivalry. China does not want to be in ‘G-2’ with the United States as an equal.”
“China wants to dominate the world. By unilaterally ending the rivalry with China, he has only accelerated China’s rise as the world’s sole superpower and made way for the United States to become China’s junior power that will help its rise.”
In the name of America First, Trump’s profiteering and culture wars would likely end up being the undoing of America’s power. And the NSS 2025 shows exactly how Trump would unravel American power.
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